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This wearable drone could be your next smart device

It is 2015 and we are entering a post-smartphone era, which means it is time to work out what will be the next big smart device. Apple seems to agree with Fitbit, Jawbone and Motorola that it will probably be a wearable. But could it actually be... drones? Adam Pruden from Frog Agency in New York believes it could be both -- simultaneously.

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The team at Frog took it upon themselves to work out whether drones might become something we interact with every single day, Pruden tells the audience at The Conference in Malmo.

Drones, they realised have already evolved directly from smartphones. They are built on the same technologies -- the same microprocessors and sensors. The US Senate was even told at a hearing earlier this year that drones were "basically flying smartphones". "What I find interesting about the comparison is the behavioural similarities rather the technologies," says Pruden. Earlier this year they were used for capturing political unrest in Hong Kong in a similar way to smartphones -- although drones were able to capture the magnitude of events in a way smartphone couldn't. "Drones are taking self obsession to an entirely new high," adds Pruden, with the growing popularity of "dronies". They even have their own application platforms, with interfaces projected from a drone onto any surface..

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The team at Frog realised that for drones to step up and become part of everyday lives in the same way smartphones have been, they would have to have two distinctive characteristics. Firstly, they would have to be able to perform physical tasks and be able to "move through physical space and interact with the physical environment in a way that smartphones can't". Secondly, they would have to be wearable. We will only want to use them when we need them, so they will have to be able to dock on our bodies.

The group came up with 15 concept designs for wearable drones -- things like wearable dog collars, a wearable drone that can fix your makeup and hair -- and then chose four to develop further.

The first was the Flare -- a flying tour guide and navigator. The Flare jumps off an acrylic band attached to the hand and works like a flying compass.

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Frog Design

The Breathe, on the other hand, sits on the shoulder passively measuring air quality until dangerous pollutions levels are detected. At this point it leaps up in front of the face, providing a filter for you to breathe through.

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The Parasol is a gold drone that hangs off the belt or is worn as jewellery and then detects inclement weather and jumps up to protect the user, either from UV rays or rain using its propellers.

Frog Design

As much playmate as it is drone, the Scout can fly above you to project a path on a rock wall to challenge you as you climb, and doubles as a fitness tracker when it's docked.

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These designs are extremely cool and exciting, but there were other factors that the Frog team discovered as part of the process. "The key component we weren't accounting for was that drones need to integrate into society," explains Pruden.

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In order to integrate into society, drones will have to understand distance, how to interact with other drones and with the built world, with its owner's body and the body of others, but also importantly with the soul.

In order to form an emotional connection with humans and break through scary stereotypes, Pruden predicts that "in the future... drones will have delightful personalities". They will also have to be able to signal their intentions so that you will know "a drone is approaching you to deliver you something, not to kill you". "It's important that those approaches and interactions with drones are clearly communicated."

There will of course have to be other precautions in place too. "Drones will need to tether to their owners, not necessarily physically. There's going to be a need to assign a user to a drone and clearly identify who owns that drone," says Pruden. He hypothesises that we will probably have to register our drones in the same way we currently register our motor vehicles.

We'll need new infrastructure too, he adds, much like we have mobile phone towers now -- we might have charging stations, for example. Drone highways and flight patterns will be established in the future, "to stop the sky above becoming incredibly chaotic". In terms of interactions between drones, Prudens says, "there may be a law where drones have to help other drones". "They also have to be completely safe and right now they're not," he adds. "In order for drones to become part of everyday life is we have eliminated that fear factor we currently have," he says. "As designers we will have to steer the technology towards the good and away from the bad."